Tag: Workers
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United Steel Workers Goes All in on Solidarity at Convention
More than 2,000 members from across the United States, Canada and the Caribbean spent four days charting the future of our union and recommitting themselves to the solidarity that powers the union at the USW’s triennial constitutional convention earlier this month.
International President David McCall opened the convention by calling on union members to fight back against wealthy elites who want to silence workers across North America.
“To turn back the tide of economic injustice and corporate greed, we need to truly be all in,” McCall said. “We can hold nothing back, and we need every member to join in the fight – for as long as it takes.”
In debating resolutions ranging from fair trade to civil and human rights, delegates shared their struggles and victories in the fight against corporate greed. They also heard from trade unionists from other countries and a panel of federal workers who warned of broad attacks on workers’ rights coming out of Washington, D.C.
While billionaires like Elon Musk may be emboldened under the current administration, AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler declared that with 71% of Americans supportive of unions, union members are in a “generational moment” to build the labor movement. AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Fred Redmond reminded delegates that “we know the way forward.”
The way forward is going all in on solidarity. Delegates demonstrated what that looks like by taking action right from the convention floor by calling their members of Congress to demand passage of the bipartisan Protect America’s Workforce Act.
Delegates left Las Vegas fired up and ready to carry that energy forward into their workplaces and communities.
“Being all in isn’t a one-time action – and it isn’t a bet,” McCall said. “It’s our way of operating, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.”
You can find full coverage of our convention, including photos, videos, resolutions, and more, on the USW website.
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HELU Calls on Academic Workers to Stand Up (Higher Ed Labor United)
If institutions won’t stand up to the Trump administration, then it’s up to academic workers, students, communities, and citizens to stand up for them. Because we have the strongest levers of power over our local institutions.
While international students have become the first target on campuses, it’s important to remember that a portion of faculty (and in particular contingent faculty who are more precarious), administration, and campus service workers are also vulnerable to ICE. The consequences of these actions could have far-reaching effects. Due process of the law is not for specific groups. We all have it or no one has it.
This absolutely is an attempt to silence dissent in the country, especially on college campuses.
This absolutely is authoritarianism.
This absolutely is in line with the current attacks on higher education which were laid out in Project 2025. And in line with the crackdown on student protests before Trump took office.
And what’s worse is that many of our institutions are refusing to stand up for students.
Thankfully, unions are already responding.
We have to rise to this moment or higher education will never be the same.
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Johns Hopkins to lay off 2,200 workers as it reels from Trump’s USAID cuts
This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback.Dive Brief:
- Johns Hopkins University is moving to cut over 2,200 jobs, the largest layoffs in its history, according to a university spokesperson.
- The layoffs are tied directly to the Trump administration’s unilateral cuts to the U.S. Agency for International Development, which brought an $800 million funding hit to Johns Hopkins.
- The job cuts include 1,975 international positions across 44 countries as well as 247 in the U.S, the spokesperson said. Another 29 international and 78 domestic employees will be furloughed with a reduced schedule.
Dive Insight:
Earlier in March, Johns Hopkins President Ron Daniels revealed the depth of the funding gap wrought by the Trump administration’s suspension of foreign aid via executive order and efforts to gut USAID without congressional approval. Daniels said then that the university would have to wind down its projects funded by USAID grants.
Employees in USAID-funded positions at Johns Hopkins have worked to “care for mothers and infants, fight disease, provide clean drinking water, and advance countless other critical, life-saving efforts around the world,” a university spokesperson said in an emailed statement.
The affected jobs set for elimination are in its medical school; the Bloomberg School of Public Health, which includes the Center for Communication Programs; and Jhpiego, a nonprofit affiliate that provides medical care abroad.
The decimation of USAID has been challenged in court. On March 10, a federal judge issued a partial preliminary injunction in the case, saying the cuts likely violated the Constitution.
“The Executive not only claims his constitutional authority to determine how to spend appropriated funds, but usurps Congress’s exclusive authority to dictate whether the funds should be spent in the first place,” according to the decision from the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
Daniels previously told the campus community that federal funding cuts and the resulting chaos would likely bring reductions to the university’s personnel and budgets.
“Over the past six weeks, we have experienced a fast and far-reaching cascade of executive orders and agency actions affecting higher education and federally sponsored research,” Daniels said in early March. “What began as stop work orders or pauses in grant funding allocations has morphed into cancellations and terminations.”
In addition to the USAID fallout, Johns Hopkins faces many millions in shortfalls from the National Institutes of Health’s move to cap funding for institutions’ indirect research costs at 15%.
The university is among those suing NIH to block the cap, which plaintiffs say violates federal law, regulation and agency authority. In court papers, Laurent Heller, Johns Hopkins’ executive vice president for finance and administration, said the institution received over $1 billion in funding from NIH in fiscal 2024. Of that, $281.4 million covers indirect costs, one of the largest of which is physical space.
The funding helps support clinical trials for treatments related to cancer, pediatrics, heart, lungs, brain, liver and other areas, as well as other research and services.
“The proposal to cap indirect cost rates at 15% could end, seriously jeopardize, or require significant scaling back of the projects and infrastructure described above, as well as hundreds more projects of importance for life-saving medical discoveries, treatments, cares, and cures,” Heller said.
There again, a court has ruled that the administration likely overstepped its authority. A judge overseeing several cases against NIH issued an injunction in March compelling the agency to keep paying negotiated rates for indirect costs as the case continues.
The funding cuts represent a risk of “halting life-saving clinical trials, disrupting the development of innovative medical research and treatment, and shuttering of research facilities, without regard for current patient care,” the judge wrote.
Harvard University, Columbia University, Northwestern University and many other higher ed institutions have announced hiring freezes and cutbacks amid uncertainty over NIH and other federal funding sources.
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Liberty University must face former trans worker’s discrimination claim, judge rules
This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback.A worker who was fired by Liberty University for disclosing her transgender status and announcing her intention to transition may proceed with her employment discrimination case against the institution, a Virginia district court judge ruled Feb. 21 (Zinski v. Liberty University).
The case involved a worker who was hired in February 2023 as an IT apprentice at the university’s IT help desk. She received positive performance reviews until July of that year, when she emailed Liberty’s HR department, explaining that she was a transgender woman, had been undergoing hormone replacement therapy and would be legally changing her name, according to court documents. An HR representative promised to follow up with her.
Shortly thereafter, after hearing nothing, the worker reached out again and was scheduled for a meeting later the same day. She was presented with a letter terminating her employment and explaining that her decision to transition violated Liberty’s religious beliefs and its Doctrinal Statement.
In response to the worker’s lawsuit, Liberty University argued that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (among other laws) allow religious employers to discriminate on the basis of religion, contending that the worker’s firing was religion-based rather than sex-based in discriminatory nature.
While Judge Norman Moon appreciated that the case presents a “novel question of law in the Fourth Circuit,” he ultimately found current case law didn’t fully or clearly support the university’s argument.
“If discharge based upon transgender status is sex discrimination under Title VII generally, it follows that the same should be true for religious employers, who, it has been shown, were not granted an exception from the prohibition against sex discrimination,” Judge Moon said in his order denying the university’s motion to dismiss the case. “They have been entitled to discriminate on the basis of religion but on no other grounds.”
Judge Moon pointed out that “no source of law … answers the question before us,” but “we find that a decision to the contrary would portend far-reaching and detrimental consequences for our system of civil law and the separation between church and state.”
“This case — and the law it implicates — points to the delicate balance between two competing and laudable objectives: eradicating discrimination in employment, on the one hand, and affording religious institutions the freedom to cultivate a workforce that conforms to its doctrinal principles, on the other,” Moon wrote. “We find that our holding today — that religious institutions cannot discriminate on the basis of sex, even if motivated by religion — most appropriately maintains this balance.”
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Haskell Indian Nations U lays off probationary workers
Haskell Indian Nations University, a small tribal college in Lawrence, Kan., laid off nearly 30 percent of its faculty and staff to comply with the Trump administration’s directive to shrink the size of the federal workforce.
An order came through the Office of Personnel Management Feb. 13 to fire all probationary employees who had not yet gained civil service protection.
Haskell is one of two tribal colleges funded by the Department of the Interior. As of fall 2022, the institution had 727 full-time students and employed 146 faculty and staff. Local news reports that about 40 probationary employees have been laid off.
The Haskell Board of Regents said in a statement that it was “closely monitoring the recent directive from the Office of Personnel Management, which has resulted in the termination of certain probationary federal employees across multiple agencies. At this time, the Board has not received confirmation that Haskell Indian Nations University is exempt from these layoffs.”
A member of Haskell’s Board of Regents said the layoffs are in “basically every department on campus”—faculty, student services, athletics, IT and more, according to The Lawrence Times.
The institution has faced recent turmoil, running through eight presidents in six years and being subject to a congressional investigation over failing to address student concerns about sexual assault.
In December, Kansas Republican senator Jerry Moran and Republican representative Tracey Mann put forward legislation to take the college out of the hands of federal oversight and transfer it to a Haskell Board of Trustees appointed by the tribal community.
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Workers are cannibalised by the capitalist class (Nancy Fraser)
The world is facing multiple crises simultaneously: Climate change, the rise of authoritarian movements, and the exploitation of labor from the Global South, among others. Professor of philosophy and politics at the New School, Nancy Fraser, says “it can’t be a coincidence” – at the root of it all is capitalism.
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Bernie Sanders Proposes 20,000 Fellowships for American Students to take STEM Jobs from H1B Foreign Workers
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EEOC Issues Long-Awaited Regulations on Implementation of the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act – CUPA-HR
by CUPA-HR | April 17, 2024
On April 15, 2024, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission issued its long-awaited final regulations and interpretative guidance on the implementation of the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA). The EEOC states in its press release that the final rule is intended to offer “important clarity that will allow pregnant workers the ability to work and maintain a healthy pregnancy and help employers understand their duties under the law.” It provides guidance to employers and workers “about who is covered, the types of limitations and medical conditions covered, and how individuals can request reasonable accommodations.” The regulations will be published in the Federal Register on April 19 and go into effect 60 days later.
The PWFA, which was signed into law in December 2022, requires most employers with 15 or more employees “to provide reasonable accommodations to a qualified employee’s or applicant’s known limitations related to, affected by, or arising out of pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions, absent undue hardship on the operation of the business of the covered entity.” It passed Congress with strong bipartisan support.
Known Limitations
Under the regulation, “limitations” include both physical and mental conditions related to, affected by, or arising out of pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions. The regulations specify that the definition of a limitation “shall be construed broadly to the maximum extent permitted by the PWFA.” A limitation “may be a modest, minor, and/or episodic impediment or problem” and can be related to current or past pregnancies, potential or intended pregnancies, and labor and childbirth.
The examples of limitations provided in the rule include miscarriage or stillbirth, migraines, lactation, postpartum depression, and pregnancy-related episodic conditions, such as morning sickness, but the list is not intended to be exhaustive. The limitation may be “a need or a problem related to maintaining [the worker’s] health or the health of the pregnancy,” and it “need not be caused solely, originally, or substantially by pregnancy or childbirth.” Related medical conditions can include conditions that existed before pregnancy or childbirth but are exacerbated by the pregnancy or childbirth.
The employee or their representative must communicate the limitation to the employer to receive a reasonable accommodation. The employee and employer should engage in an interactive process to determine if a worker’s limitation qualifies for a reasonable accommodation and the appropriate accommodation.
Reasonable Accommodations
Under the final rule, “reasonable accommodations” have the same definition as under the Americans with Disabilities Act. They include modifications or adjustments to the application process, to the work environment or how the work is performed, and that allow the employee to enjoy equal benefits and privileges of employment as are enjoyed by similarly situated employees without known limitations. It also includes modifications or adjustments to allow a covered employee to temporarily suspend one or more essential functions of the job.
The rule provides several examples of reasonable accommodations that may be appropriate under the act. These include but are not limited to additional breaks, allowing the worker to sit while they work, temporary reassignment or suspension of certain job duties, telework, or time off to recover. Leave can be requested even if the employer does not offer leave as an employee benefit, the employee is not eligible for the employer’s leave policy, or the employee has used up their allotted leave under the employer’s policy.
Reasonable accommodations are limited to the individual who has a PWFA-covered limitation; it does not extend to an individual who is associated with someone with a qualifying limitation or someone with a limitation related to, affected by, or arising out of someone else’s pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical condition. The regulations specifically clarify that “time for bonding or time for childcare” are not covered by the PWFA.
Undue Hardship
The rule explains that an employer does not have to provide a reasonable accommodation if it would cause an “undue hardship,” or a significant difficulty or expense. The rule includes a variety of factors that should be considered when determining if a reasonable accommodation would impose an undue hardship, including the nature and net cost of the accommodation; the overall financial resources of the facility or covered entity; the type of operations of the covered entity; and the impact of the accommodation on operations, including on the ability of other employees to perform their duties or the facility’s ability to conduct business.
The rule provides several factors to consider when analyzing whether an accommodation involving the temporary suspension of essential functions of the position qualifies as an undue hardship. These include the length of time the employee will not be able to perform the essential function; whether there is work for the employee to accomplish; the nature of the essential function; the employer’s history of providing temporary suspensions to other, similarly situated employees; whether other employees can perform the functions; and whether the essential functions can be postponed.
Other Provisions
The rule also encourages “early and frequent communication between employers and workers” in order “to raise and resolve requests for reasonable accommodation in a timely manner.” Employers are also instructed that they are not required to request supporting documentation when an employee asks for a reasonable accommodation; they should only do so when it is reasonable under the circumstances.
Controversies Surrounding the Regulations
While the PWFA was passed by Congress with strong bipartisan support, the EEOC has faced significant pushback about the implementing regulations.
The EEOC’s delay in issuing these regulations caused considerable frustration from employers. The PWFA went into effect in June 2023, which was when employers were required to comply with the law and the EEOC began accepting claims of discrimination under the act. Without the implementing regulations, however, employers had no certainty as to how to comply, leaving them exposed to potential liability.
The most significant criticism stemmed from the regulation’s implications around abortion. In fact, of the nearly 100,000 comments the EEOC received in response to its notice of proposed rulemaking on the regulations, over 96,000 discussed the regulation’s inclusion of abortion. The final rule clarifies that “having or choosing not to have an abortion” qualifies as a medical condition under the regulations. Several Republican members of Congress accused the EEOC of using the regulations to further the Biden administration’s pro-choice agenda. EEOC Chair Charlotte Burrows, however, defended the language, saying it is consistent with legal precedent and the agency’s interpretations of other civil rights statutes under their jurisdiction. The regulation clarifies that employers will not be required to pay for abortions or travel-related expenses for an employee to obtain an abortion. The EEOC specifies they expect the most likely accommodation related to abortion will be leave to attend a medical appointment or recover from a procedure. Several conservative organizations are threatening legal action against the final rule.
Litigation Challenging the PWFA
On February 27, 2024, a federal district court in Texas ruled that the House of Representatives lacked a quorum when it passed the PWFA, because over 200 representatives voted by proxy. The Constitution required that a quorum be present for the House to conduct business, but in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the House allowed for proxy voting. The court found Congress violated the Constitution when it passed the law and blocked enforcement of the act against the state of Texas and its agencies. The law is in effect elsewhere in the United States, but other legal challenges may follow Texas’s approach.
